One issue mobile station users face is the loss of their mobile station and their stored address and contact information (which is sometime referred to as an address book) resident on the lost mobile station. As such, applications have been developed that aid in backing up these important personal information. That is, a copy of the stored address and contact information is created and stored somewhere other than on the mobile station.
However, unless the customer has a back up file or record of the phone address book, there is no way to recover it if the device is lost, stolen or damaged. In some case, mobile users back up their address books manual. For example, by copying contacts onto a piece of paper or creating an electronic file to save on a computer or other storage medium. In order to add this information to a new device, the end user has to key in the contact information.
In response, some mobile network carriers offer back-up services either for a fee or for free. Despite encouraging the use of such programs, adoption rates of these applications are surprisingly low. Thus, a need exists for increasing participation in the use of back-up applications for mobile devices.